Whereas duplicated buildings in the US and other parts of the world tend to be tourist traps (think Vegas), in China these structures are often inhabited as private residences – and they shape the bourgeois aspirations of the middle-class families that live in them. In many cases, the residents may not even realize that the buildings they inhabit are exact replicas of other structures around the world.

If you find this as crazy as we do, and you’d like to learn more about knock-off architecture, you can purchase the newly released Original Copies now from University of Hawaii Press, plus stay tuned for our in-depth review! And let us know what you think about duplitecture in the poll below:

Is mimicry the highest form of flattery or is duplitecture just blatant stealing?

137 Votes Duplitecture is flattering for the original architects and spreads their work to other parts of the world.

332 Votes Duplitecture is just another form of counterfeiting and should be criminalized

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3 Comments

i am an Architect and i personally think, that originality of a structure is its authenticity which would be ruined by replicating it in other parts of the world. Incorporating the abstracts of structure is acceptable to certain level but duplicating spoils the essence of original design . a structure is similar to conceiving a baby, duplicating spoils its soul.

I also copied/combined existing design when i was doing some works in architectural firm in china, so what, time\\\’s not enough unless you copy, the clients don\\\’t care if you copy. to finish a set of drawings in just 1-2 days is important.

They\’ll never be able to capture all the aspects of thoses places, the ambient and culture of thoses places will never be existent on the copies. So if you want to get the true essence of the places you will always have to go to the real deal. I take it as 1:1 scale models!